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This evening's music features 3 artists called "Mr. Blues". Enjoy!

“Today we hear Socialists speak, just like any bourgeois, of “ France,” or “ Germany,” and of other political and national agglomerations—results of historical struggles—as of homogeneous ethnographic units, each having its proper interests, aspirations, and mission, in opposition to the interests, aspirations, and mission of rival units. This may be true relatively, so long as the oppressed, and chiefly the workers, have no self-consciousness, fail to recognize the injustice of their inferior position, and make themselves the docile tools of the oppressors. There is, then, the dominating class only that counts; and this class, owing to its desire to conserve and to enlarge its power, even its prejudices and its own ideas, may find it convenient to excite racial ambitions and hatred, and send its nation, its flock, against “ foreign ” countries, with a view to releasing them from their present oppressors, and submitting them to its own political and economical domination.”

-- Errico Malatesta

News and Opinion

The Military’s Justification for Sending Thousands of Troops to the Border Is the Opposite of the Truth

Operation Faithful Patriot, the Trump administration’s military campaign to secure the midterm elections by deploying troops to the southern border, is less than a week old, and it already features some of the same core failings that defined its post-9/11 predecessors. Like the invasion of Iraq, Faithful Patriot is a right-wing political project carried out through military means against a demonized nonwhite population, one that haunts the fevered dreams of many Republican voters. And, as some observers have already noted, Faithful Patriot, like the ongoing war in Afghanistan, does not appear to feature a clear end game. The similarities don’t end there though. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Gen. Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy, head of the U.S. military’s Northern Command, revealed that Operation Faithful Patriot is running on bad intelligence, which the decorated military commander is apparently comfortable regurgitating to the American public and the four-star general’s press shop is seemingly unable to account for.

The comments in question have to do with what O’Shaughnessy termed “the true nature” of the caravan itself. “We understand this caravan is different than what we’ve seen in the past,” the general told reporters, noting that this analysis was drawn from coordination with Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Homeland Security component overseeing the ports, and the Border Patrol. “That is one of the things that as we work and train together with CBP to understand the true nature of this caravan and the ultimate effect of that makeup of the caravan,” O’Shaughnessy went on to say. “I think what we have seen is we’ve seen clearly an organization at a higher level than we’ve seen before.” While the general’s line on the caravan — that it is a more organized operation than others in previous years — appears to be the line the enforcers of Operation Faithful Patriot have settled on to justify its existence, O’Shaughnessy’s press office at NORTHCOM did not provide evidence to support his assertion, despite repeated requests. ...

The current caravan, particularly at its peak, is indeed larger than past caravans, said Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, or WOLA, but this one stands apart because it is less organized, not more so. “It’s completely improvised,” Isacson said. “There’s nobody there to make sure that people have access to emergency services, that they’re hydrated, that at some point along the line, they’re going to get decent legal advice so they don’t just walk into the United States completely blind. Pueblos Sin Fronteras at least did that, and they kept things more orderly.”

“It’s a much more organic thing,” Isacson noted, and while it may be large, “there’s nothing else there that shows that this is orchestrated.” He added, “I almost wish it were more orchestrated. It would be a much more orderly process.” ...

In its darkest form, the notion that the caravan has been orchestrated and organized by outside forces has been seized upon by right-wing extremists, white nationalists, and other bigots who describe its existence as evidence of an “invasion.” Trump administration officials up to the president himself have fanned the flames of racist paranoia, with the commander-in-chief baselessly claiming that the caravan was infiltrated by “unknown Middle Easterners.” It was that same conspiracy theory that Robert Bowers shared on right-wing social media before walking into a Pittsburgh synagogue and carrying out the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history.

Trump further stokes immigration fears by saying he'll send 15,000 troops to border

Donald Trump has said he is prepared to send as many as 15,000 troops to the US-Mexican border to head off a caravan of Central American migrants, a notion described by rights activists as “a racist ploy”. The US president floated his latest hardline proposal just two days after announcing the deployment of 5,200 troops to the border and with the midterm elections imminent.

“We’ll do up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of border patrol, Ice and everybody else at the border,” the president told reporters at the White House before departing for a campaign rally in Florida. “Nobody’s coming in. We’re not allowing people to come in.”

The caravan is nearly a thousand miles away and would take weeks to reach the US. But Trump claimed: “Oh, they’ll be here fast. They’re trying to get up any way they can. They’re trying to get up by train. They’re trying to get up by truck and by buses. We’re going to be prepared. They’re not coming into our country.” ...

A deployment of 15,000 troops would be roughly equivalent to the size of the US military’s presence in Afghanistan, and three times the size of its presence in Iraq. ...

In his exchange with reporters on Wednesday, Trump denied that he was fear-mongering. Asked if the billionaire philanthropist George Soros was funding the caravan, as alleged by baseless conspiracy theories on the right, he said: “I wouldn’t be surprised, I wouldn’t be surprised, … I don’t know who, but I wouldn’t be surprised. A lot of people say yes.”

Trump posts a “sickening” midterm ad casting immigrants as cop killers

President Donald Trump tweeted an incendiary political ad Wednesday that suggested members of a migrant caravan heading towards the U.S. could be cop killers. Designed to rile immigration fears ahead of the midterms, the spot accuses Democrats of allowing an undocumented migrant later convicted of murder to stay in the U.S. Video of the murderer in court fades to images of the caravan, made up mostly of Hondurans fleeing violence. A tagline reads: “Who else would the Democrats let in?”

The ad comes five days after Trump said: “We must unify as a nation in peace, love and in harmony.”

It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now! https://t.co/0pWiwCHGbh pic.twitter.com/2crea9HF7G

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018

The spot recalls the “Willie Horton” ad from the 1988 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush. That ad, which focused on a convicted murderer who committed rape while furloughed in Massachusetts, is viewed as one of the most racially charged in modern political history.

This could be a video tweeted out from a far-right, neo-Nazi group.

But it was tweeted out by the president of the United States. And folks are still debating if he's a racist/anti-Semite/white nationalist.

Sigh. https://t.co/JA8nADmSZy

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 1, 2018

Allan Nairn: The U.S. Is Facing Incipient Domestic Fascism, But Rightist Revolution Can Be Stopped

Financial Press Cheers Election of Fascist in Brazil

Watching Brazil — the world’s ninth largest economy — carefully, the financial press has expressed its delight over Bolsonaro’s rise and victory. Forbes (10/3/18) happily reported on a rising “Bolsonaro fever,” noting the Brazilian currency, the real, was strengthening on news of his increasing support and dwindling Workers’ Party enthusiasm. The Financial Times (10/8/18) and CNBC (10/2/18) both reported that the markets were “cheering” his lead in the presidential race, with a follow-up Financial Times piece (10/18/18) noting weapons companies’ surging stocks upon Bolsonaro’s emergence as the frontrunner, a trend mirrored by stocks more generally as his performance “heartened investors.”

The New York Times (10/26/18) reported markets were surging on “hope of a Bolsonaro victory,” claiming his appeal lies in his willingness to enact unpopular privatizations and gut Brazilian pensions. Bloomberg (10/30/18) breathlessly reported that he would be “extraordinarily pro-business.” The CBC (10/26/18) explored the new world of possibilities for profits for Canadian corporations in agriculture, extractive sectors and finance, as Bolsonaro promises to slash environmental regulations and virtually all market restrictions. “It could be a good time to be a mining investor in Brazil,” it reported. It did note in an offhand manner that, as an externality, critics say it could lead to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. ...

Studying the financial press’ coverage of Brazil reveals a great deal about its priorities and ideology. Faced with the choice of center-left reformers who may tax business slightly more, and outright fascist candidates, the financial press once again made its decision clear, proving that democracy and the health of the stock market often do not mix. The media appear uninterested in the human cost of Bolsonaro’s near-genocidal statements, nor the cost to the population if pensions are gutted and state assets are sold off, nor the cost to the Amazon, a crucial carbon reserve that must be maintained and strengthened if humanity has any chance of mitigating the catastrophe of climate change. These are mere externalities. When it comes to opportunities for profits, all else is forgotten. After all, fascism is big business.

“Biblical Basis for War”: Washington politician’s manifesto suggests supporters of abortion and gay marriage be killed

A Washington state politician has suggested in a manifesto that all men who support abortion and gay marriage be killed, among other extreme religious views.

Washington state Rep. Matt Shea admitted Wednesday that he wrote and distributed the four-page document, called the “Biblical Basis for War,” which includes 14 sections on how biblical war can and would unfold. Shea, a Republican who represents Spokane in the state’s House, is up for re-election in the midterms next week. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The document asserts that all men must oppose abortion, gay marriage, communism, and occultism when Biblical war begins. Otherwise, they will be murdered. “If they do not yield — kill all males,” the document reads.

Section 5 of the manifesto asserts that during war, “numbers are inconsequential” and “God is with us, and the Battle is His.” Section 6 mentions circumcision and that the Biblical army may make sacrifices to achieve its goals. Section 11 includes a detailed organizational structure for the Biblical army, with the highest rank of “Battalion Commander.”

Hitler Wouldn’t Risk Doomsday, But The United States Did – Daniel Ellsberg on RAI

Tech giants may have to be broken up, says Tim Berners-Lee

Tech giants such as Facebook and Google have grown so dominant they may need to be broken up, unless challengers or changes in taste reduce their clout, Tim Berners-Lee has said. Berners-Lee, the computer scientist who invented the world wide web in 1989, said he was disappointed with the current state of the internet, following scandals over the abuse of personal data and the use of social media to spread hate.

The digital revolution has spawned a handful of US-based technology companies since the 1990s that now have a combined financial and cultural power greater than most sovereign states. Berners-Lee told Reuters: “What naturally happens is you end up with one company dominating the field so through history there is no alternative to really coming in and breaking things up. There is a danger of concentration.” But he also urged caution, saying the speed of innovation in technology and tastes could ultimately cut some of the biggest firms down to size. ...

Berners-Lee expressed dismay at the way consultancy Cambridge Analytica obtained the personal data of 87 million Facebook users from a researcher. That scandal, he said, was a tipping point for many. “I am disappointed with the current state of the web,” he said. “We have lost the feeling of individual empowerment and to a certain extent also I think the optimism has cracked.”

Google employees are walking out to protest the company’s treatment of women

Google employees all over the world are walking out Thursday to protest the company’s treatment of women, after an explosive New York Times report last week said the tech giant had, over 10 years, protected three executives accused of sexual misconduct.

In particular, the Times reported that Google had handed Andy Rubin, who created Android mobile software, a $90 million exit package in 2014 — even though he’d been asked to resign after an investigation found an allegation that Rubin had coerced a female Google employee into oral sex to be credible.

“When Google covers up harassment and passes the trash, it contributes to an environment where people don’t feel safe reporting misconduct,” Liz Fong-Jones, a Google engineer, told the Times after the story’s publication. “They suspect that nothing will happen or, worse, that the men will be paid and the women will be pushed aside.”

Each office is walking out at 11:10 a.m. local time. Employees based in cities like Singapore, Tokyo, Zurich, London, Berlin, and Dublin have all already walked out, according to a Twitter account called “Googlewalkout,” which is tracking the protest.

I don't care much for the bias of Freedom House generally, but this looks fairly innocuous:

Global Internet Freedom Plummets as Governments Use Censorship and Surveillance to Quash Dissent

Countries across the globe are following in the footsteps of the Chinese government, adopting authoritarian digital practices that pose serious threats to democracy, according to a new Freedom House report released Thursday.

For Freedom on the Net 2018 (pdf), more than 70 researchers comprehensively reviewed internet freedom in 65 countries that represent 87 percent of the world's internet users. They documented declines in 26 countries—including the United States under the Trump administration as well as Egypt, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Venezuela—and improvements in only 19 nations.

They found that "disinformation and propaganda disseminated online have poisoned the public sphere. The unbridled collection of personal data has broken down traditional notions of privacy. And a cohort of countries is moving toward digital authoritarianism by embracing the Chinese model of extensive censorship and automated surveillance systems. As a result of these trends, global internet freedom declined for the eighth consecutive year in 2018."

ICE is sending out fake court dates to immigrants.

Hundreds of people stood in line outside immigration courts in cities across the country on Halloween for what appeared to be a trick: the date on their notices said October 31, 2018, but the immigration courts did not know they were coming. One attorney described the area outside the immigration court in San Francisco as a “mob scene.” The line outside the immigration court in Atlanta hugged the gate around a good portion of the building. “Chicago was a zoo," Daniel Thomann, a Chicago immigration attorney, told VICE News. "I arrived a little after 9 a.m., the elevator lobby was packed with people you could barely get out of the elevator."

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement appears to be sending notices with fake dates to prevent undocumented immigrants from qualifying for what’s called the “stop-time rule,” which can make them eligible to stay if they can prove they’ve been in the U.S. continually and have a family member with a green card or U.S. citizenship. Because ICE has long had difficulty scheduling dates with the immigration courts, it used to send notices with “TBD” court dates. But in June, the Supreme Court ruled that a “TBD” notice to appear was invalid, and that’s when ICE started sending notices with fake dates. ...

The “phantom” court date phenomenon can be traced to a June 21 Supreme Court ruling in a case called Pereira v Sessions. Pereira is a native citizen of Brazil who came to the U.S. in 2000, overstayed his visa, and received a notice to appear following a DUI arrest in 2006. Pereira’s notice to appear did not mention a time and date for him to appear in court for his initial removal hearing, so he argued that it didn’t set off the so-called “stop-time rule.”

According to the “stop-time rule, “ if a person accrues 10 years of continuous physical presence in the U.S., they may be eligible for a form of discretionary relief known as cancellation of removal. By the time Pereira appeared before a judge in 2013, he argued that he’d been in the U.S. for over 10 years and that his 2006 notice to appear with a TBD date and time was invalid. The Supreme Court agreed with him. Following this ruling, ICE started issuing fake dates in a poor attempt to comply with the Supreme Court.

Kentucky Shooting of Two Blacks: ‘No Surprise,’ Given the Rise of Ultra-Right

Kentucky: man accused of shooting two black store patrons indicted for murder

The white man accused of shooting two black grocery store patrons in Kentucky has been indicted on two counts of murder.

Prosecutors say Gregory Bush was indicted on Wednesday by a Jefferson county grand jury in the shootings a week ago at a Kroger store in suburban Louisville. Bush also was indicted on one count of criminal attempted murder and two counts of first-degree wanton endangerment.

Bush was seen on surveillance video trying to enter a historically black church minutes before the shootings at the grocery store. He was not able to enter the church, police said. The church is headed by a black pastor and has a large African American membership.

A federal prosecutor has said federal investigators are examining if there were any violations of federal law, including potential civil rights violations such as hate crimes.

The police chief of the town outside Louisville where the shooting happened said he believes the killings were racially motivated.

'Welcome to the white man's world': police officer accused of shocking attack on Latino teen

A Massachusetts police officer accused of spitting on and kicking a Latino teen during an arrest in 2016, yelling “welcome to the white man’s world”, has been arrested and charged with three counts of federal civil rights violations. According to the indictment, Springfield officer Gregg Bigda also threatened to “stick a fucking kilo of coke in [the juvenile’s] pocket and put [the juvenile] away for fucking 15 years”, and to “fucking kill [the juvenile] in the parking lot”.

Those comments, which came during an interrogation after the arrest, were captured on video and publicly released by the Republican newspaper in 2016. In the footage Bigda can be heard yelling: “I’m not hampered by the fucking truth ‘cause I don’t give a fuck! People like you belong in jail. I’ll charge you with whatever!”

In the indictment, prosecutors described the officer’s behavior as “so abusive that it shocks the conscience”. ... In addition to three counts of violating the civil rights of those arrested, Bigda was charged with one count of obstructing justice for allegedly writing a false report.

Springfield police commissioner John Barbieri said in a statement Wednesday that Bigda would be suspended without pay due to the indictment and that the department would have “no further comment during the criminal proceedings”. Bigda had previously served a 60-day suspension for the incident, which occurred nearly three years ago. Bigda faces a maximum of 32 years in prison on the charges.

'We Have Less Time Than We Thought': Alarming New Study Shows Oceans Have Retained Far More Heat Than Previously Believed

Offering a stark warning that humanity may have even less time to drastically cut carbon emissions than the United Nations suggested in its latest alarming report on the climate crisis, new research (pdf) published in the journal Nature on Wednesday shows that Earth's oceans have retained 60 percent more heat each year over the past 25 years than scientists previously believed.

"We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted. But we were wrong," Laure Resplandy, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the new study, told the Washington Post. "The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn't sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already."

The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change argued in its report released earlier this month that humanity must cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 in order to avert climate catastrophe by 2040—but that timeframe was based on previous and possibly conservative estimates of global warming. As the Post's Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis noted, "higher-than-expected amount of heat in the oceans means more heat is being retained within Earth's climate system each year, rather than escaping into space."

"In essence," they added, "more heat in the oceans signals that global warming is more advanced than scientists thought."

Today, a new study released by scientists at @Princeton University found that the world’s oceans have retained 60% more heat than previously thought, indicating that the climate crisis may be even more dire than first realized. Our statement: https://t.co/9qKXdfQ9jy

— Sierra Club (@SierraClub) October 31, 2018

'This Is Our Darkest Hour': With Declaration of Rebellion, New Group Vows Mass Civil Disobedience to Save Planet

To underscore the planetary emergency and denounce the U.K. government's inaction on the climate crisis, a new group calling itself Extinction Rebellion rallied over 1,000 people to block Parliament Square in London on Wednesday. The direct action marks the launch of a mass civil disobedience campaign, with the group issuing a "Declaration of Rebellion" against the government because the activists "refuse to bequeath a dying planet to future generations by failing to act now."

Police arrested 15 people taking part in the action, but organizers say the wrong people were taken into custody. "If we lived in a democracy," Extinction Rebellion declared in a tweet, "the police would be here to arrest the criminal politicians who are wrecking the planet."

The DECLARATION OF REBELLION against the criminal inaction of the UK government on #ClimateBreakdown has just been made.#ExtinctionRebellion pic.twitter.com/g81w0DL3Dv

— Extinction Rebellion (@ExtinctionR) October 31, 2018

Noted speakers at the action included Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, journalist George Monbiot, and 15-year-old Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl "on strike" from school over her own government's climate inaction.  "We're facing an immediate unprecedented crisis that has never been treated as a crisis and our leaders are all acting like children. We need to wake up and change everything," she stated. ...

Wednesday's action was far from the end of the road for Extinction Rebellion; they've got a week of action lined up for mid-November in London if their three demands— that the government openly communicate the severity of the crisis and urgency for change; enact legally binding policies to slash emissions; and allow for a Citizens' Assembly to monitor and hold government to account for enacting to "the bold, swift, and long-term changes necessary"—aren't met.

"This is just a warm up. Rebellion Day is on November the 17th. Same time, same place," the environmental group, which is backed by nearly 100 leading academics, tweeted. The escalating actions, they say, are because we "are raging against this madness and our hearts are breaking." "We have a right and duty to rebel in the face of this tyranny of idiocy—in the face of this planned collective suicide."

"Look up the wall, you know you gotta call
Before you start calling, be ready to fall
And if you fall in my direction
Don't expect no help at all"

Democrats lack robust climate change plan despite global crisis

Democrats don’t have a plan to address climate change comprehensively – or even to a significant degree – if they regain control of the US government in the near future, despite criticizing Republicans as the party of pollution. After failing to get conservatives on board to limit planet-warming gases through legislation or regulation, Democratic leaders in Washington are now wary of wading into another tough political fight, despite an intensifying environmental crisis.

If Democrats win back the House in Tuesday’s midterm elections, their strategy is to hold oversight hearings on Donald Trump’s environmental rollbacks and pursue more incremental and popular measures, according to close observers and a senior Democratic aide.

Environmental advocates hoping progressive politicians will lead efforts to save the planet may be shocked to learn there’s no wide-ranging strategy or headline-grabbing legislation waiting to be unveiled – even if Democrats take the White House in 2020. The party’s efforts as currently planned won’t be enough to spur the rapid transformation in how society operates that leading scientists say is needed to spare humanity from the worst of rising temperatures, extreme weather and massive societal and economic disruptions. But few in the party – or the big environmental groups that traditionally support it – are prepared to admit this outright.

“Obviously, a transformative government response to climate is clearly needed based on what we’re seeing from science. We have about 10 years left to really be doing something, but it’s hard [for us] to do because the Republican party is largely in denial on this,” said Congressman John Delaney, a Maryland Democrat running for president in 2020. Congressman Ted Deutch, the Florida Democrat and cofounder of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the House, said he’s not “rosy eyed” that Democrats in the majority could get Republicans to reverse their stances on the environment and climate.

Democrats don’t only fear futile battles over legislation with Republicans. They also are wary of turning moderate Americans against the party if climate solutions raise the cost of living.

Five countries hold 70% of world's last wildernesses, map reveals

Just five countries hold 70% of the world’s remaining untouched wilderness areas and urgent international action is needed to protect them, according to new research. Researchers from the University of Queensland (UQ) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have for the first time produced a global map that sets out which countries are responsible for nature that is devoid of heavy industrial activity.

The UQ and WCS study, published in the journal Nature, identifies Australia, the US, Brazil, Russia and Canada as the five countries that hold the vast majority of the world’s remaining wilderness. The data excludes untouched wilderness in Antarctica and on the high seas that is not contained within national borders.

Trump climate plan will break law by worsening pollution, states say

Environmentally minded US states say the Trump administration’s biggest climate change rollback could increase pollution, violating federal law, according to a preview of how they will fight the federal government. The Environmental Protection Agency is moving to replace Barack Obama’s clean power plan, a rule that would have hastened the US shift away from electricity produced from burning coal. ...

The 14 states opposing the EPA rule say that it means pollution could end up higher than if the agency hadn’t written a new rule at all. “EPA’s own analysis shows that the proposed approach has the potential to increase CO2 and other pollutant emissions, worsen air quality, cause and exacerbate illnesses, and even contribute to deaths,” the states, which include California, New York and North Carolina, said in comments due this week.

EPA is required by law to reduce greenhouse gases from power plants. That’s why the agency is writing a replacement instead of rescinding the rule outright. But like many of the administration’s efforts, the replacement will face vigorous opposition in the form of lawsuits once it is final. The courts could take years to make a final decision, delaying federal action on a mounting environmental crisis.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Trump’s Endless Mendacity and the Dawn of American Fascism

'They're playing dirty': Can Navajos win power after racial exclusion?

US Blames Iran For Impoverishing Civilians While Prepping Further Sanctions

Russia announces sanctions against senior Ukraine figures

Days Before Midterms, Trump's Top Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow Calls Federal Minimum Wage Hike a 'Terrible Idea'

Estimating the Impact of Climate Change Costs on Growth: Is Degrowth Already Here?

Dire Warnings for Other States (and the Planet) as Big Oil Pushes Sneaky "Nuclear Option" to Protect Profits via Colorado Ballot

A Little Night Music

George "Mr. Blues" Jackson - I'm Sorry

George 'Mr. Blues" Jackson - Uh-Huh

George 'Mr. Blues" Jackson - Heaven On Earth

Bobby "Mr. Blues" Merrell - I ain't mad at you

Bobby "Mr. Blues" Merrell - I'm Gonna Set You Free

Bobby "Mr. Blues" Merrell - We Gonna Pitch a Boogie Woogie

Bobby "Mr. Blues" Merrell - Let 'Em Roll

Wynonie Harris - Mr. Blues Is Coming To Town

Wynonie Harris - Rock Mr. Blues